are we possibly headed into further stagnation? well, you know, the political strategist side of things i ve never had to look so much at politics to figure out where the economy was going. i tell you, it s like watching the keystone cops. it s gotten ridiculous. going forward we do have momentum carrying us into 2012. that s the good news. we hope we don t lose it because of political ineptitude. that s what would kill it. we have a lot of icebergs ahead. we hope politicians are better at navigating turbulent water than the captain of the titanic. that said, where are the positives? the positives are there is a glimmer of hope in the labor market. looks like the situation bottomed out after things fell apart last spring and the summer. we re seeing momentum return to job hiring. not enough momentum, but some is better than none. particularly small business hiring, new business burst, that s very important to the back bone of the u.s. economy and where we re looking for str